Why hate bananas?

[Callonia]

This is my Third city that I settled from a current game in progress.

The whole thing was buried completely deep in jungle Every single hex was jungle covered except for one lone forest hex.

I saw that it had rather interesting location.. Good amount of rivers for Hydroplant, and would've been made of heaven if rivers still had that lovely 1 gold per hex still in

Plus a mountain and bunch of hills.

And six banana hexs.

Spoiler :

To be honest, I didn't fully grasp the significance of this location until like today but all I saw was awesome production city when hydroplants come online.

I learned that when you get that second tech which boosts ur plantations for 2nd time which makes the banana plantations give you 6 food per hex.

And six multiplexed by six equals to 36 food. I only had two workers assigned to This particular city since Ancient era. After enough jungle got cleared, the city imploded.

I actually went and built the national library in that city.

After my experiences with this city it makes me wonder why bananas is so hated.
6 food is no joke, thats a hanging garden or lake victoria. But unlike those two items listed, bananas is relatively common..

Oh and in case u guys didn't know, Hydroplant will put the hammer back onto the hex that banana plantation removes. I liked that xD

Yes that's a neuswatchetizn wonder it built That lone mountain was good for something after all! I'm so glad I didn't settle for a observatory. xD

I basically just went eh, i'll settle my city into the range of those six bananas while taking up as much of the river as possible for hydroplant and I was pleasantly surprised at the results..

Only 2 turns to build the panzers and I still haven't put in the Nuclear power plant yet XD

And the city already have several specialists operating about four or six I think. Got a great engineer idling cuz I can't decide with what to do with him atm, No world wonders left to built for me, and I"m looking for another city to build a manufactory atm. I just have too few cities than i'm used to atm.

 

[wcbarney]

Maybe it's just me, but I never build plantations on banana hexes -- 'cause I don't want to destroy the beaker-producing jungle.

 

[pozz]

If you got a heavy jungle start, you want the jungle to stay. People hate bananas cause it require you to remove the jungle, where a normal jungle could have placed a trading post on it and give beakers.

Generally if you have bananas you'll have many lots near your city covered with jungle, which means you'll be production starved, which also gives it a very low priority to upgrade.

 

[Misanthrop]

oh, bananas are great. 4 food with granary, dont even have to improve it. 4 food 2 science with university, perfect - and you can even build a fort on the tile.
i don't hate bananas, i LOVE 'em.
i just hate people who build plantations on them. no wait, actually i love them, i love when they play against me, always a sign of a managable opponent. no offense.

 

[Danierokon]

No one hates banana, we all love it.
It's just we are so willing to trade the food bonus from improving banana to 2 science.
Sometimes I think banana should be a luxury...NomNomNom

 

[civvver]

Why would you want science over food? Food breeds population which equals more science and other good stuff.

 

[Polisurgist]

Why would you want science over food? Food breeds population which equals more science and other good stuff.

1. Food is easier to come by.
2. Banana tiles have a hell of a lot of food even if you don't put a plantation there, so you get most of the food bonus and the science as well.
3. You can always turn an unimproved banana tile into a plantation, but you can't turn the plantation back, so there's circumstances where you might hang onto it for a little while.

Really, I think the thing to do is to keep your banana tiles unimproved for most of the game, then to do a late-game food rush after you have a research lab in the city; build a hospital and build plantations over the trading posts.

Though if I had a heavy jungle start and would get all those science tiles anyway, I'd probably chop the bananas early on.

Like many things, the right choice is going to be situational.

 

[Biologist]

I like bananas, bananas are good. I generally leave bananas alone, especially if they're occupying the only jungle tile near a city. I'd rather have the science bonus w/ university than grab a little extra food. There are tons of ways to get extra food for a city, and you can always use an internal trade route if all else fails.

 

[PreLynMax]

I don't like 'naners because they aren't a luxury resource.

 

[Stealth Bumbler]

I leave the Jungle in place with the 2 beakers until the city's pop plateaus, which is usually around the time that a plantation would make it a +6 tile. Then I build the plantation to get the city growing again, which will be more beakers in the long run.

 

[Callonia]

Thank u for the help so far and

Okay but tell me if I'm wrong..

I'm always bananas over managing happiness. . >.>


6 food = 3 pop points paid off which equals to 3 beakers but banana jungle = 2 food and 2 science which means it's equal to 3 pop points.

Which leaves me with this..

Banana plantation will cost you 3 population points while jungle bananas will have benefit of a trade post being built on it and cost you only 1 pop for 2 food, 2 science and 2 gold with economics.


This means Banana plantation is only optimal if you know you will have enough happiness while jungle bananas will win every single time because it only requires 1 population?

But merit of Banana plantation is that you spend 1 worker on the hex while having two free workers due to the food it gives you which allow you to man two mines or have a couple of specialists?

My banana city have a musician guild so it was benefited from that.

 

[Polisurgist]

You'd have to work the tile either way, so the citizen that you assign to it is irrelevant; whether you leave it unimproved and have a university or you improve it, it's always going to be a good tile to work.

The question is whether the extra food you get from improving the tile will, over the life of the city (or the life after you build a university), bring you more science than the two you get from having a jungle. Personally, I think people get a little hung up on actually seeing the science icon on the tile and don't think about the net effect the extra food could have on everything else in addition to science, but hey.

I think this also applies when people go seeking out deserts and mountains because of observatories or Desert Folklore; these are all ways in which the game makes up for the fact that deserts, mountains and jungles generally suck. You can set up a perfect storm of circumstances* in which you make it work, but it's extremely situational whether you break even on the deal.

*My last completed game, I was playing Morocco, had three cities founded in deep desert, got DF and Petra and then plopped Kasbahs on all of them...and later took over Shaka's empire, which had even more desert than mine. It was pretty awesome.

 

[Callonia]

Ok that helps, thanks Polisurgist xD

 

[Misanthrop]

You'd have to work the tile either way, so the citizen that you assign to it is irrelevant; whether you leave it unimproved and have a university or you improve it, it's always going to be a good tile to work.

The question is whether the extra food you get from improving the tile will, over the life of the city (or the life after you build a university), bring you more science than the two you get from having a jungle. Personally, I think people get a little hung up on actually seeing the science icon on the tile and don't think about the net effect the extra food could have on everything else in addition to science, but hey.

I think this also applies when people go seeking out deserts and mountains because of observatories or Desert Folklore; these are all ways in which the game makes up for the fact that deserts, mountains and jungles generally suck. You can set up a perfect storm of circumstances* in which you make it work, but it's extremely situational whether you break even on the deal.

*My last completed game, I was playing Morocco, had three cities founded in deep desert, got DF and Petra and then plopped Kasbahs on all of them...and later took over Shaka's empire, which had even more desert than mine. It was pretty awesome.

nop. simply wrong. unimproved banana with university is simply better than improved banana. city on a mountain is simply better than a city without a mountain, observatories are HUGE, there is no tile that could make up for that.

ofc there are some (but very few) exceptions to it (like ics-ing, going for a certain combination of very few tiles, going for a specific vc...) but generally you dont improve bananas and go for a mountain if possible.

 

[bjelar]

nop. simply wrong. unimproved banana with university is simply better than improved banana.

Are you sure?

You can build plantation very early on, and the city population will snowball and stay higher for the whole game.

Unimproved banana is much worse untill you get university, and your city will be several pop points lower for the entire game.

Maybe you are right; normally I have to slow down anyway due to happiness issues. Then the extra food means nothing, of course. But if you are on top when it comes to happiness, I'm not convinced.

 

[Polisurgist]

nop. simply wrong. unimproved banana with university is simply better than improved banana. city on a mountain is simply better than a city without a mountain, observatories are HUGE, there is no tile that could make up for that.

ofc there are some (but very few) exceptions to it (like ics-ing, going for a certain combination of very few tiles, going for a specific vc...) but generally you dont improve bananas and go for a mountain if possible.

I'll concede that I may be wrong on the observatory, but I'd like to see some actual proofs that two bulbs from Education onward is better than extra food from Calendar onward. I'd bet that in those early years of a city, you could net ~2 pop before you build a university...or at the very least, that which one you do depends primarily on how quickly you're beelining Education.

 

[Strategist83]

Was thinking about posting a banana thread myself, preferably as a poll as per forum tradition (Yes?/No?/Banana!). Seems most people are aligned on the opinion bananas are annoying because they force you to decide what to do with them.

I play many late start games (post-industrial), and here I almost always leave the jungles in place. I don't really like how Civ 5 handles the whole 'ecology' thing though; I think Civ IV did it better, with its rewarding you for not having cut down every single forest or jungle in range through the environmentalism civic. The realism is arguable, but it was an interesting decision to make regardless. An extra +1 production on lumber mills, making them better than just another mine, and a further science bonus for jungles as well as a very late game tech might have been interesting for Civ V. Late start games on IV, there was always the interesting decision to make of what to do with the huge forest your civilization usually would spawn in because of the incredibly powerful National Park wonder. V totally threw this out the window.

... And yes: Very early in the game you should definitely clear the jungle for a banana plantation - especially if it's in a production-starved location, which is likely, and if your workers aren't pressed with other tasks. It gets more complicated approaching Universities, though.

 

[troublmaker]

All hail Callonia, glorious leader of Banana Republic!

 

[steveg700]

So, when I see an unimproved banana tile go from three food to four, that is the effect of a granary?

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Was thinking about posting a banana thread myself, preferably as a poll as per forum tradition (Yes?/No?/Banana!). Seems most people are aligned on the opinion bananas are annoying because they force you to decide what to do with them.

I play many late start games (post-industrial), and here I almost always leave the jungles in place. I don't really like how Civ 5 handles the whole 'ecology' thing though; I think Civ IV did it better, with its rewarding you for not having cut down every single forest or jungle in range through the environmentalism civic. The realism is arguable, but it was an interesting decision to make regardless. An extra +1 production on lumber mills, making them better than just another mine, and a further science bonus for jungles as well as a very late game tech might have been interesting for Civ V. Late start games on IV, there was always the interesting decision to make of what to do with the huge forest your civilization usually would spawn in because of the incredibly powerful National Park wonder. V totally threw this out the window.

... And yes: Very early in the game you should definitely clear the jungle for a banana plantation - especially if it's in a production-starved location, which is likely, and if your workers aren't pressed with other tasks. It gets more complicated approaching Universities, though.

This is absolutely the opposite of true. Civ4 was completely anti-environmentalist, any player who wasn't terrible at the game would have deforested most of their land by the midgame, and turned worthless 1-food jungles into 2-food grassland as quickly as possible. Not to mention jungles actually caused unhealth.

I like Civ4 much more than Civ5, but this is one of the things I don't mind from Civ5.